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Monday, September 30, 2013

Mystery Monday: Mystery No More

Mystery Monday is a
daily prompt at Geneabloggers that
asks us to share mystery ancestors or mystery records – anything in our family
history research which is currently unsolved.

You know, science is a marvelous thing. You can go for years BELIEVING something is
true but still be haunted by that nagging possibility that you’ve been
mislead. Science can bridge that gap
between BELIEVING and KNOWING.

Take the case of Russ and Patricia.

Like many Boyd researchers, they grew up hearing the
family legend that their great-grandfather William Preston Boyd had changed his
name to avoid punishment for some unspeakable crime. They knew that his son had burned some
letters while preserving just enough to point the family to William’s true
identity as a Jollett while keeping that horrible secret a secret.

William and Hattie BoydPhoto Courtesy of Tim Rugenstein

Russ and Patricia are distant cousins who made their
connection online but have never met in person. In sharing their research, they discovered
they both had heard those stories about their ancestor and those burned letters. They knew the letters had been sent to
various people and agencies in Page, Rockingham, and Shenandoah Counties of Virginia
under the pretext of informing William Jollett that he was coming into an
inheritance. In actuality, William and
Hattie Boyd were trying to determine if William Jollett was still a wanted
man.

While the letters made it a certainty that their great
grandfather had changed his name due to some illegal activity, Russ and
Patricia have made it their mission to PROVE - not merely accept - that William Boyd was
actually William H. Jollett.

This past year when Patricia found my blog, she sought my
help in putting together a DNA project.
Russ volunteered to be the Boyd half of the equation. We needed a Jollett man to provide a possible
match. The Jollett name is rare today, but I had a few contacts
that I could ask. Patricia even had a benefactor
willing to pay for the test.

In the meantime, Russ purchased the Ancestry DNA test
because he had other interests besides the Boyd-Jollett question. He wanted to know whether he had any Native
American heritage. Within a couple
weeks, Russ had the answer: surprisingly,
no Native American DNA, and not surprisingly, plenty of British Isles.

Before we could seal the deal with a Jollett donor out of
California, Russ was contacted by a woman named Kathy. She isn’t even a Boyd or Jollett
researcher. Her family’s DNA had been
submitted for entirely different reasons, but there it is: Kathy’s and Russ’s family trees intersect
with James and Nancy Walker JOLLETT, Kathy through their daughter Lucy Walker
Jollett and Russ through their son Fielding Jollett. Fielding was William’s grandfather.

Ta Da!

Thanks to DNA, Boyds and Jolletts have crossed that
bridge from BELIEVING to KNOWING their suspicions have proved true. Only one question remains which might never
get answered: What was that horrible
crime that started this whole mess to begin with?

It was Mystery Monday exactly a year ago that I began a
month-long series called “Man on the Run.”
I love the timing of this final chapter!

What an exciting adventure that was, and it's extremely amazing that you find time outside of everyday life to get these answers! It's got to consume lots of your time (I know from so many of my own searches) and yet I know, when there's a will and a drive to get to the bottom or uncover something, it feeds us the energy we need! I have faith that you soon discover the dark secret someday!

Wendy, it's so good to learn that not only did you find the answer to your mystery, but that you can demonstrate a DNA success story! Sometimes, those DNA results seem to me to produce more mysteries than they clear up!

And big cheers for teamwork! Love how researchers join together to target some real results. What a great story! And terrific timing, too.

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About Me

My name is Wendy. About twenty years ago, I helped my mother research the Jolletts. Since retiring from teaching, I have expanded my research which I share here. When I’m not looking for my own family, I index for FamilySearch and the Greene County Historical Society.
Welcome to Jollett Etc. Please leave a comment to let me know you were here. If you have more information or believe we are related, EMAIL ME at wendymath at cox dot net